


spark of devotion

by alltheworldsinmyhead



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 'love is not enough' trope, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, F/M, Heartbreak, I don't even know how to tag, Kinda?, Mentioned Clexa, Slow Burn, So much angst, clarke griffin is a wanderer, mentioned Flarke, mentioned bellamy/gina, smut with no actual smut, starcrossed lovers i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 11:29:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6327184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltheworldsinmyhead/pseuds/alltheworldsinmyhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>and with one kiss/ you inspired a fire of devotion/ that lasts twenty years/ what kind of man loves like this?<br/><br/>'' She wakes up in the middle of the night, sweat dripping down her back, hair sticking to her bare shoulders, the image of Bellamy sitting in front of her on the bed with his legs crossed and face opened in such a honesty it felt like he was showing her his raw soul and nothing less; his low voice singing to her Neruda’s poems-<br/>‘’ Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs, oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.’’<br/>- the ode to the body electric, the song of their wild hearts, the one thing that always made them come back for more. ''</p><p>10 years long love affair of Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin though the snapshots of memories of the moments that will stay with them forever</p>
            </blockquote>





	spark of devotion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marauders_groupie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marauders_groupie/gifts).



> ( Featuring me writing smut without writing actual smut???? Idk , this is a mess BUT it's also the longest thing i've ever written, so, regardless of the results i'm quite proud of myself)
> 
> Pretty much inspired by the whole How Big How Blue How Beautiful by Florence and The Machine, but ESPECIALLY by What Kind of Man. Also I was writing this with Halsey's Strange Love playing on repeat in the background, so you can listen to it if you want.  
> Sorry for any mistakes that may be there, I didn't edit is a heavily as i probably should've. I hope you'll enjoy <3 //
> 
>  
> 
> LANA,  
> Baby this is not perfect and, to be honest, i'm nowhere to being perfect either, but you've never seemed to mind and - i wanted to thank you for everything. For standing by my side and making me feel like i'm ten feet tall and invincible. You are such an incredible person and a wonderful writer and i know, i know you don't want to be an inspiration, but you DO inspire me, all the time, with everything you do.  
> I really hope you'll enjoy this mess- you deserve way more than this, but i swear, i did my best for you. 
> 
> Kisses,  
> Nat

**‘’ Hearts are wild creatures, that’s why our hearts are cages.’’**

**Elalausz**

  


+8

 

She kisses him with eyes wide open and hands clenched  on his shoulders, nails digging in his flesh; she kisses him like a wild animal, terrified and mad and out of her damn mind and he cannot think, he cannot do anything else, but kiss her back.

Blood sings in his ears and he wraps his arms around her so tightly he can feel her heart trashing against her ribcage; she traces his jaw with her lips, he bits on her earlobe; she melts in his hands, all little signs and moans and –

‘’Good morning, sleepyhead.’’  says Gina, patting him lightly on a back, voice just above whisper; smelling like breast milk and warm sheets.  ‘’You’ll be late if you don’t wake up now.’’

 He opens his eyes and closes them again; presses his face to the pillow until all he sees are constellations and nebulas painted on the inside of his eyelids.

  
  
  
  
  
+4

 

Clarke has seen a really big part of the world and ate all sorts of things for breakfast, from eggs and beans to crickets, but Bellamy’s waffles are absolutely out of competition.

 She takes one big bite, letting butter drop down her chin and almost moaning at the taste exploding in her mouth.

 ‘’It’s like porn. Only better.’’  - she says with eyes closed and head thrown back, licking her lips from whipped cream.

 Bellamy chuckles, sitting beside her with his cup of coffee-

( two sugars.  black. blue mug with ‘’nerd king’’ scribbled  on it by her hand)  and crossword puzzle from New York Times.

 ‘’ It’s good to know my waffles are better than an orgasm. ‘’

‘’ All the orgasms, seriously.’’ – she picks the strawberry from her plate and eats it whole; puts her bare feet on Bellamy’s lap without asking for permission and thinks that no matter how much things change, they still stay exactly the same.

 

Bellamy’s kitchen is still Bellamy’s kitchen; small, neat and tidy, with ugly brown wood-imitation cupboards and too big table, sunlight spilling through half-open window.

Bellamy’s waffles are still Bellamy’s waffles, perfect in every way, true evidence that there is a god after all.

And Bellamy-

Well. Bellamy is still Bellamy. He has couple more tiny wrinkles in the corner of his eyes and his skin is a shade or two lighter than in her memory, but he’s still her favorite person in the world and he would still lay down and let somebody cut him in half to make her happy.

And it still terrifies her, straight to the core.

‘’ Irregular bones forming spinal cord, eight letters down, second e?’’ he asks her, his left hand creeping up her leg absent-mindedly, from her feet up through her ankle and reaching her calf, his fingers leaving a burning trail on her skin as if a column of ants was marching towards her tight.

‘Vertebrae’’ – she says, breathless, her voice strangled.

She came back two months ago and up until now he has never touched her like that. Like he used to, before she left. What they have now is still fragile and uncertain; a newborn doe, big eyed and adorable and easy to fall in love with, but on shaky legs, about to drop on the ground when it steps on a tiniest rock.

Suddenly, she feels too small for her body; the kitchen is burning hot and she can still taste strawberries, cream and butter on her lips.

He hums in agreement,  the sound of his well-sharpened pencil echoing in the kitchen.

Bellamy takes a sip of coffee and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand; she watches his face carefully, wondering if this is it, if this is the minute they’ve been dancing around ever since she came running to his flat in the middle of the night, banging on the doors with fists, mascara running down her neck along with tears and spit, crying for him until he opened and pulled her into his arms with enough force to make her heart stop beating for a minute or two.

She came back.

She came back for many things, but mostly _for him_ and he gets it well, she knows he does.

And she’s not ready to – they’re not ready, not before they talk through it, they shouldn’t but-

But she wants him so bad, it  feels as if she was boiling inside  and now his thumb is caressing her knee and she shivers and yes, he wants her too.

‘’Maybe not all, the orgasms, Princess.’’

He puts the paper on the table, right beside the mug -

( she always puts the paper under the mug, she loves those coffee circles just as fiercely as he hates them ) – he leans down and kisses her knee and she just – loses control of her body over again, with Bellamy’s lips pressed higher and higher on her tight, until he hitches her skirt up and her back arches and she cries, with hot tears spilling from her eyes,  over again, over again, over again.

 

+7

 

Gina tells him she’s pregnant in a café in the downtown, her hair frizzy from the rain, small, uncertain smile on her lips.

‘’ I know it’s – unexpected.’’ – she says, pulling on a loose strand on the left side of her face, nervous habit he didn’t even know she has  up until now.  ‘’ We’re not engaged and, to be honest, I don’t want this- situation to rush things, but-‘’

‘’ Rush things? Is it even possible to rush it even more?’’ -  runs through Bellamy’s mind and all he can really think about is Clarke pressing her face to the nursery room in the hospital, her eyes wide open, awe practically radiating from her as she got to hold her baby brother for the first time, her lips kissing his chubby hands, her nosing the peach fuzz soft hair on his little head, the way she looked up and their eyes met and she smiled so brightly he thought he could go blind from it.

He hates himself, he really does. He hated himself for being with Gina because Clarke is in Israel with Lexa and he hates himself  even more mow; loathes, despises even.

He knows what he should do and he knows what he’s expected to do and chooses the latter.

He takes Gina’s hand, squeezes it and promises to be there for her; he tells her he loves her;  he stays.

  


His son is born in February, pink and red and covered in blood, with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck but very much alive. He’s bigger than Octavia was , but not as loud; he has a tuft of dark fizzy hair and dark skin and he coos softly when Gina nurses and Bellamy loves him, loves him without any limits and barriers and, for a moment, the world is not so dark and not so scary when he gets to hold this kid and feel his breath on his skin.

Octavia presses thousands of butterfly kisses in baby’s tummy, making him wiggle and wave his little fat arms and she smiles and laughs, but, when he walk her to the door, she hugs him and whispers in his ear-

‘’ I’m sorry, Bell.’’

Bitterness clenches around his heart, all at once. Octavia gets it; Octavia always gets it. You can be happy and bitter at the same time and Gina can’t spot a difference, because she has never seen him without Clarke’s poison in his veins.

At night, he dreams of a girl with a sunlight in her hair and a baby with her bright blue eyes in her arms and he hates himself a little more,  every single time.

 

-1

 

‘’Be brave’’- her father said and then he dropped the phone on his side of a bulletproof glass and then she never saw him again and she can’t even remember how his face looked like and what were her last words to him.

The ground is wet ; she digs in it with stiletto heels of her shiny black shoes, grass and mud staining them permanently. It doesn’t matter; she’s never gonna wear these shoes again. After she comes home, she plans to rip the dress from herself and burn her skin under the shower, until it’s red and aching, just like her head on the inside.

She thinks about the rope leaving a deep, scarlet band around her father’s neck, like a grim wedding band _till the death tear us apart_. Knowledge is lethal, but love is a poison that will kill you before you can even notice.

Bobby pins her mother used to keep her black veil in place are hurting her scalp and black silk is tight on her chest, making it hard to breath. She wants to take off gloves with her teeth and scratch her wrists until they bleed; she wants to scream like a wild animal and run away and claw her mother’s face off; but she doesn’t do any of those things.

She just stands on the cemetery, digs in the wet ground with her heels, ignores her mother’s hand on her shoulder and doesn’t cry at all.

 She doesn’t think she’ll be able cry ever again.

 

+1

 

He hisses ‘’princess’’ at her and she hates it, hates him so much, it almost feels delicious to be able feel something so strongly again.

Ever since- she’s been mostly numb, mostly closed up, content and shallow like a shell in her pre-med word filled with thick textbooks and regular calls from her mother she always ignored.

But then she accidently ended up in study group with  Monty and Jasper and they dragged her to the club one Friday night and she met Bellamy Blake and damn, she would be lying if she told it didn’t feel like a deep breath of cold air in her lungs.

Bellamy drives her mad and makes her want to tear him to shreds, but he also makes her feel alive in a way nobody else has ever made.

‘’Asshole’’ – she spits in return, takes a sip of whiskey burning her throat raw, kisses his sister’s cheek as she sits beside her. Octavia Blake is the brightest flame in the entire universe, steel and blood behind her smiles and hard muscles underneath her soft, milky skin.

‘’ It’s nice to know you two are warming up to each other. ‘’ –snickers Octavia, dropping her pink ballet bag on the dirty floor near the bar stool and hiking her leg up to rest her feet on the another stool, stretching herself until the bones of her spine click. Clarke studies her face; she looks tired and Octavia kinda never looks tired; she’s a ball of energy,  a whole Big Bang somehow contained in her small figure. There are purple bruises marking the skin of her calf and when Clarke looks up, she sees Bellamy’s also staring at them, brows furrowed and hand stopped half-motion through cleaning the glass.

He opens his mouth to say something – probably to scold his sister or tell Clarke to get lost – when Finn suddenly appears on Clarke’s side, pats the bar with one hand and asks for one beer.

Bellamy gives him a dirty look and turns around to reach for the drink and Finn winks at both of them, kissing Clarke’s cheek so lightly she can barely feel it.

‘’ What’s up, girls?’’ he says, half-hugging Octavia who shamelessly wraps her arms around his neck, smacking a peck underneath his jaw and making him laugh.

Finn Collins, her new boyfriend, easy charmer and exactly not the kind of guy Clarke has ever though she would be dating. But he pressed and pressed and clawed a way to her heart and – she loves how he makes her feel.

How they all make her feel – Octavia and Monty and Jasper and Monroe and Harper and Finn and –

( dark eyes fixed on her every movement, big hands waving in the air as he shouts at her,  dark hair slicked back and passion in everything he does) and Bellamy.

Bellamy gives Finn his beer and gets back to work and then Jasper makes up a really stupid drinking game which leaves them all dead to the world before 10 p.m. and Finn calls a cab and takes her home and leaves two Advil’s and a glass of water by her bed and yeah, she feels alive.

( she falls asleep on Finn’s lap, but it’s Bellamy that opens her flat and carries her inside and unbraids her braid and combs her hair with his finger and nobody ever knows but maybe she can feel it, because when she wakes up, entire flat smells like him).

 

+5

 

Octavia looks as if she’s about to spit on her and she can’t even blame her.

‘’How dare you.’’ – she says with a growl, brows furrowed and something almost predatory in her eyes. ‘’ How dare you come back and do it again.’’

Clarke honestly doesn’t know how to answer it.

‘’ You’re not gonna talk about it? Yeah, go ahead, why not. Stay silent.’’ – Octavia crosses the room in four steps, stands so closely to Clarke that she can see all the shades of hatred in her blue eyes. ‘’ You fucking broke him when you left. _Twice_. Because he was what, not enough? Let me tell you-‘’

‘’It was not like that.’’ – says Clarke, involuntary, desperate _please Octavia, please_  - ‘’It’s not- it’s not that he is not enough. He’s more than enough, I just-‘’

She stops abruptly, all the words escaping from her as she breaths them out and she stands in front of her former friend speechless, staring at her feet cause she cannot face her anymore.

‘’ You what, Clarke?’’ – asks Octavia and she sounds surprisingly soft.

‘’ I got scared.’’ –  she whispers, her chin trembling from the sheer truth in this statement. – ‘’I am scared.’’

She knows Octavia doesn’t get why would she be scared of being with Bellamy, because Octavia has a  heart of a feral beast, because she stood up tall and proud when her fucked up ankle fucked up her ballet career and when the world told her she can’t be with the man she loves, she told it to go screw itself and fought for everything she has now with teeth and nails and spitfire.

But Clarke also knows that  Octavia knows a lot about fear too; maybe more than anyone else.

Silence between feels heavy and then O takes her hand and squeezes it, once, hard.

‘’ Fear is a demon, Clarke.’’ – she sounds torn, as if she was battling with herself. – ‘’Slay it.  If not for my brother, then for yourself.’’

 

But she’s not Octavia and she just can’t do that. And she feels they both know it.

 

+4

 

It’s not all pain and tragedy, it really isn’t.

Sometimes it’s good. She kisses his throat, feeling the rumble of his laughter; they lay wrapped in each other on her bed, watching Rome reruns and Clarke’s soaps; they have slow, morning sex, pressed so close they lose recognition of each other’s bodies, Clarke woken up with Bellamy fingers dancing on her spine, his mouth  wet on the crook of her neck.

Sometimes they’re just normal 20-something years old, not crippled souls fighting for dominance; sometimes they’re all heat against the bathroom door; two bodies in the crowd of hundreds of other, bouncing to the rhythm of the music.

 

Bellamy with his glasses sliding off his nose as his sits completely engrossed in Odyssey, his  long legs dangling off the coach, messed up hair and freckles and grey socks with holes in it, cause the son of seamstress apparently had enough of sewing for the rest of his life,  and Clarke watching him from the kitchen;  the smell of hot chocolate filling the whole apartment, her amused smile and brown chocolate mustache above her upper lip-

Clarke with cheeks pink from cold, wrapping a scarf around a snow man and sticking  carrot in his head,  screaming bloody murder as he slips a snowball under her collar and chasing him around the park until they both collapse on the ground, her cold nose pressed to his cheek, their legs tangled-

Sugary-sweet, teeth-rooting fantasy, two kids who are all right, who are just enough.

 

He recites prayers between her tights and she sings the song of life and love and honest promises in between kisses;  dancing to Hozier’s ‘Like Real People Do’ in the middle on the living room in small circles, sliding on the corridor in socks, laughing until their lungs burn and they can’t take a breath.

 Some things really stay sacred.  Sometimes it’s really, really good.

 

+8

 

She plays pretend for half a year, hidden in Lexa’s apartment, letting the smell of mint and candle wax soak her clothes and trying to forget-

and it all comes crushing down one Sunday. Lexa’s cutting her hair short;  blonde and pink streaks falling on the floor and then she casually mentions things like ‘job’ and ‘lease’ and ‘our future arrangements’ and Clarke’s whole body just _freezes_.

 

She’s not – she’s not here to stay and it hits her, all at once. She doesn’t want to be here to stay. She may pretend she does but she doesn’t and there’s nothing left to say now that she realized this.

 

Lexa is everything that Bellamy isn’t, but they are strangely alike, sometimes. Calm lakes and stormy oceans, all at once, their hearts fighting battle with their minds from the day one

( the thing that makes them so different is who’s the winner)

Clarke watches her as she sleeps, thousands of thoughts running through her mind per minute and the one striking her; they’re both so fucking beautiful.

There is a ring on the chain around  Lexa’s neck that she never wants to talk about, but that’s fine, because Clarke doesn’t want to talk about some things too. They’re both running, after all; and there’s this strange connection between two people who cut their own hearts from their chests and left them with a bleeding holes in their bodies, who never have a place to call home but a person and the person is not there anymore – at least not for them.

Clarke knows Lexa understands. Gets her. Why she runs, why she doesn’t want to stay. But Lexa binds her too, she sees it now, clearly and painfully- she binds her in the way Bellamy never did; not in want, not in need, but in fear.

Lexa makes Clarke fear coming back and that’s how she keeps her in place.

It’s a cold and almost cruel way of looking at their relationship, but that’s how it truly is. Clarke The Brave, Clarke The Lionhearted, Clarke The Princess by Lexa’s side could be only a coward. The golden haired-princess with a crown of daises and on her head long forgotten; there’s no coming back, or at least that’s what Clarke was trying to come to terms with.

 Bellamy is a shadow at the back of her mind;  he’s the one that she goes to sleep and wakes up with and he’s the one she apparently doesn’t love enough to let go, but fuck this, fuck that, she can’t stand looking at the mirror, because all she can think of is how her fear makes her ugly, rotten, straight to the core. She wonders how Lexa can stand the reek of her cowardice; she hardly can put up with herself. She wonders if this is how it feels like to be pushed right to the breaking point.

 

Lexa shifts a little in her sleep, her eyes moving slightly behind  lids, dreaming;  moon casting shadows on her face, softening her features just like it did with Bellamy. Night strips both of them from the illusions, takes their bitterness, gives them their innocence back, thinks Clarke idly, kissing the infinity mark tattoo on the back of Lexa’s neck and  sliding off the bed.

Tel Aviv is too bright for her to see the desert, but she knows it’s there; rough sand and loneliness, even when she has someone by her side. She’s tired, so tired and so scared.

Suddenly, she thinks about her mother; about how she will never know what really happened between Jake and Abby and she’s never going to ask because she’s too afraid to hear the answer. Her mind goes back to the time when they met for the first time after Jake’s funeral, almost three years of hatred and wounded pride and lost trust and then Abby told her she’s pregnant.

She thinks about Kane, about how different he is from her father- and she thinks about Ben, his big, carmel-coloured eyes  and soft brown hair; how he raised his arms to make her pick him up and pressed sweet, wet kisses on her check, tugging on her braid.

God, she misses him.

She wonders if Bellamy’s son has his eyes too.

She stays near the window, thoughts frozen on this one image of Bellamy holding a baby in his arms – a baby that’s not _hers_ – until  neons are replaced by the sun and when she turns around,  for the first time in a very, very long time, she takes a step towards and not away.

‘’ Be brave’’ – said her father and maybe it’s a high time she followed his advice.

  


-5

 

His most vivid memory of his mother is her sitting by the window, cold cup of tea in her hands and rounded belly;   she stares in the distance,  turned into a marble stature for a  moment, lips pressed into hard line, the pure _despair_ written on her face.

His mother only ever wanted to get out and she never could.

Octavia’s small, sweaty hand holds onto his as the assigned lawyer talks him through the process of gaining a guardianship over her and he can’t help but be bitter because well, she managed to escape.

Leaving him here firmly pinned to the place with Octavia and her still unpaid hospital bills and her big, big dreams he has to make true for her; she leaves him like that, so that he never could run away himself.

 

+5

 

‘’Come to bed, Clarke’’ – he says with a tired voice, laying on his back and not looking at her. – ‘’Just- just come here. Please.’’

He rarely asks for something for himself, so she goes, her bare feet soundless on soft, old Persian rug they found in the dumpster and then she climbs up on the bed, sits next to him, their tights barely touching.

‘’ Do you have any idea-‘’ – he chokes on words, one hand on forehead, his Adam’s Apple up and down as his speaks – ‘’What it is to me to see you come and go?’’

Like a tide, she thinks. I come and go as a tide and you can never keep me.

She leans the back of her head on the headboard, her hands fisting the material of her shirt.

‘’ Have I ever told you about my parents?’’ – she bits on her lip, eyes fixed on the lamp hanging on the celling; soft pink light of the sunset painting spots and dots on the naked skin of her calves.

He doesn’t respond; she continues anyway.

‘’ They loved each other a lot, at least that’s what I remember.’’ – garden parties with people dressed in white, air smelling like peaches and honeysuckle; her father pressing a kiss to her mother’s forehead, so tender she couldn’t look at it without feeling like she was watching something bigger than the life itself. – ‘’ And they never stopped, but their marriage became- something different.’’

A golden cage, gold as their wedding bands;  her mother’s tired voice and her father’s strained one; blue hospital scrubs and closed doors of the work room; broken vases and broken promises and broken love and Clarke, little blonde princess locked in that cage along the people who build it themselves and then lost the key, diamonds and pearls spilling from her eyes as she cried, rubies spilling from her veins as she bled.

‘’ I’m sorry, Bellamy.’’ – she says, for what it feels like a thousandth time. – ‘’I never wanted to leave you.’’

‘’ But you did’’ –  it doesn’t sound like an accusation; it’s more like a statement, repeated so many times it loses all the emotions that it initially had. – ‘’And you’re going to do it again.’’

 It's a statement too.

  
  


+6

 

Nobody tells him she’s back; he just knows it, just like that,  he’s sitting in the library looking for the least battled copy of The Eneid and then a sting, a spark and _Clarke._

He opens the door of her flat with a spare key she gave him almost five years ago and finds her asleep in a bathtub , looking more angelic than he has ever seen her, but almost predatory at the same time, like the sirens from the Odyssey.

But she also looks tired. She sleeps on her side, half of her face under the surface of the water and the other above it; her golden hair longer now than when she was leaving, sticking to her bare breast and shoulder like a seaweed,  nipple hardened from cold, one hip rising from the water like an island, sun-burned and covered in goose bumps, a deep razor cut on her left calf still smeared with blood, faded blue nail polish on her toe.

She clings to him, half asleep, when he carries her to the bedroom wrapped in a towel; her damp hair drench his shirt so he takes it off and lays down beside her, one hand rested on the curve of her bare hipbone under the blankets.  She wakes up around 3 a.m. and traces the features of his face with the very tips of her fingers, choking on ‘’I’m sorry, I’m sorry’’ ever few seconds-

( it’s too late to say you’re sorry, say you’re sorry now, Clarke)

And he doesn’t have to open his eyes to know she’s crying.

 

+1

 

Raven Reyes is an atomic explosion; a burning sun; a genial mind crafted into perfection and Clarke doesn’t get how Finn could choose her over all those things.

She looks – pale in comparison; soft where Raven is sharp, fair where she’s dark and dull when she’s bright and when Raven sits beside her on a barstool and orders them whiskey she honestly doesn’t know what to say.

‘’ I’m sorry for the whole slapping thing.’’ – Raven breaks the silence, staring at her glass with furrowed brows. – ‘’I didn’t know you hadn’t known about me. Bellamy told me today.’’

That’s news.

‘’ Bellamy?’’- asks Clarke, trying to wrap her mind around it because _Bellamy Blake defended her honor ?_

‘’Yup.’’ – Raven takes a sip of whiskey and then turns around to face her; she looks as if she’s been crying a while ago. – ‘’I slapped Finn too, if it makes you feel better.’’

Clarke can’t help, but chuckle.

‘’ A bit, yeah. Was he trying to justify himself? ‘’

‘’ Not as much as I thought he would. But he pulled ’I just feel in love’ card, so.’’

That’s so Finn, Clarke has an urge to laugh. She should’ve known, she really should’ve.

‘’ We barely knew each other. Not like – not like you two.’’

‘’ Apparently, I don’t know him at all.’’ – Raven lowers her glass on the bar with a loud thump and Bellamy appears out of thin air, eying them silently for a moment, before he refills their glasses.

‘’ It’s on the house today.’’

‘’ I’d say we don’t need your pity- but I never say no to free booze.’’ – says Clarke, drinking the whole thing in three sips, letting alcohol burn her throat raw. If only she could burn the ghost of Finn’s touch on her skin in the same way, she’d gladly do it, no hesitation.

She glances at Bellamy and he looks at her – in a strange way. The corners of his lips up, eyes almost soft, almost affectionate.

  


+5

 

Here’s the secret she will never tell, but he knows it anyway.

He comes inside her with low sound that sets her body on fire like a livewire, electricity running up and down her spine and then he collapses on top of her, his face buried in the crook of her neck, wet mouth hot on her skin as he breaths out and his chest rumbles against hers.

She wraps one arm around his neck,  puts her hand flat, spread like a starfish on his back, digging in the shivering muscles and breaths in his rhythm, she runs her fingers through his sweaty curls and pecks his head, their legs still tangled.

She loves feeling him inside her; the only thing she loves more is feeling him on her, heavy in her arms and on her chest, pressing her to the mattress. It never lasts long, only mere seconds before he pulls out of her and rolls off her to lay on his back and look at her – just, just look at her, look at her more tenderly than any touch could be – but in those seconds when she feels his body more than hers, that’s when she truly, finally can breathe.

He makes her feel so much- and he makes her not feel as well, but doesn't numb her; he _soothes_ her

Her life is a firestorm and Bellamy Blake is right in the middle on it, right in the eye of the hurricane and sometimes, he drags her there- there, in the only place when she can get to know how peace tastes like.

 

-2

 

Her father is a smart man, is a brave man and is a good man and he won’t keep him mouth shut and that’s what leads him to his fall.

 

Her father stands tall when they announce the sentence, but Clarke just refuses to let him go like that. She fights, she struggles and she screams but it’s all useless; they take him away anyway, the one and only person who could look at her and see the whole world without any limits or expectations.

Her mother’s holding her close, her arms wrapped around her, whispering soothing words to her ear but all Clarke can think of is _I know that you did, I know what you did, you think I don’t but I do._

You hate the most the one you loved the most and she can’t help but wonder if her mother was there yet, when she closed the doors of Thelonous’ cabinet behind her, never noticing the heads of her daughter and her daughter’s childhood best friend  peeking from the other room.

She wonders, if her mother was already hating her father as much as she used to love him, when she said ‘’Jake knows’’.

 

After they came back from the court, Clarke tears her bedroom apart, cuts her photos and sketches and collages into pieces and then cuts her heart out with the same scissors, with her own hands, blood running down her wrists.  

 

+2

 

Summer’s at its very peak, mid  July,  smell of peaches lingering in the air and Bellamy’s eyes warm on her as she sits beside him at the Rover, heading to the beach with Raven behind the steering wheel and their friends screaming the lyrics of Cake By The Ocean. They all run straight to the water as soon as the car stops, splashing and laughing and laughing until they just lay down on sand, trembling and dizzy.

Half of them fall asleep in the afternoon, piled up one on another, Octavia spread on Jasper  and Monty with his legs propped up on Miller’s lap. Clarke watches them, fond and so freaking in love with  them  all she can feel her heart swelling.

She applies another layer of sunscreen, puts a straw hat on her head and walks along the shore, wiggling her toes in wet sand, letting salty sea water soak the hem of her white, cotton dress, watching little crabs escape from her way.

‘’ Hey, Princess, whatcha doing?’’-  Bellamy appears by her side, his fingers cool and pleasant on her wrist.

She shrugs, smiling. There’s a tenderness in this ridiculous nickname, hidden softness that wasn’t there before. And there’s genuine affection in the way he treats her now and it makes her feel all warm and fuzzy inside and somehow  sets her on fire even more than their previous banter and she doesn’t exactly know how to deal with it, so she’s not going to fight it.

‘ Just- wandering” – she says, her eyes fixed on the horizon, two blues melting together.

‘’ Yeah, my mother used to do it to.’’ – he lights a cigarette, standing right beside her, so close that their hips are bumping with tiniest movement. ‘’ For me, it’s just a fancy word for running away.’’

Clarke bits on her lip and thinks carefully about what she wants to say. Bellamy’s – and Octavia’s – childhood is not something to comes out in casual conversation a lot, but she knows it wasn’t all sunshine and butterflies. But she’s been a wanderer for some time now and she somehow feels this strange need to make him understand; a need she hasn’t feel with anyone else.

She doesn’t know, how sometimes she talks with Bellamy and small talk about casual stuff starts getting deeper and deeper until there’s nothing casual about it anymore, but it’s becoming more and more common and there’s something magical about what’s happening between two of them, something worth protecting.  

The truth always lies somewhere in the middle, if there’s even something like real truth, but this boy beside her makes her blood sing and her heart beat a bit faster and they seem to get each other on the intuitive level and she really, really wants him to understand.

 

‘’ It’s not all like that.’’ – she says, slowly and he turns her head sharply to look at her and only then she realized he didn’t really expect her to respond. ‘’ It’s – well.’’

She draws a line on the sand with her feet; small wave takes it away, smoothest it’s edges instantly, making the mark she made disappear in seconds.

‘’ It’s running, yes. But it’s also looking.’’

‘’ For what?’’ – Bellamy takes a cigarette out of his mouth, rolls it in his fingers. – ‘’What are you all so desperately looking for?’’

‘’ We’re all looking for something. Different things. People, places. Depends.’’- she takes his hand, wraps her fingers around his wrist like he has just did, squeezes it. – ‘’You too.’’ – she adds softly and doesn’t say anything else, because she knows he knows what she means, he does this thing lately; he gets her, he really does.

He lowers his head, staring at the sand and their feet beside each other, half buried in the sand and he chuckles. He offers her his cigarette and she takes it; she touches the place his lips touched with her own lips and then takes a deep breath, her lungs expanding and then shrinking  and it shouldn’t feel like a kiss but it does.

 

\+ 3

 

She spins on the dance floor in between human bodies illuminated in scarlet and golden,  beat of the music making her breathless  as she throws her arms up in the air and closes her eyes, letting herself get lost in the moment.

And then he grabs her hips and pulls her towards him and she trips on her heels,  her chest crushing against his, cold shock of a sudden touch replaced by the itching of her skin, electricity sparkling between them;  eyes locked and nails digging in flesh and they’ve been dancing on a thin line between friendship and desire for a while now and-

He spins her around and catches her, lowers her to the ground until her long hair sweeps the floor, his arm strong and steady, anchoring her in place and she’s drunk in it, in the way he makes her feel, god,  the strength  of this pull, it terrifies her to the core but this time she’s unable to stop it and not going to.

No when he looks at her like that, dark eyes full of worship and need so burning she can barely breath under the pressure of this stare.

Bellamy doesn’t let himself lose control easily; he’s as much of a control freak as she is, but this time; this night, they both lose it somewhere between shots of moonshine and fourth and fifth song, the whole word becoming blurry as they spin and she lets him wrap his arms around her tighter and tighter and Octavia and Raven are looking at them from the corner with narrowed eyes and furrowed brows and then Clarke presses her lips to his neck, right under his jaw, they lose it, just like that.

They’re still dancing, but the pace slows down;  the air thickens and blood hums in her ears,  he breaths out and her whole body tenses and his hand roam lower and he lets his head fall on her shoulder. They sway , small circles in the middle of the room, surrounded by other people dancing and jumping all around them but it all loses its meaning completely when she feels him against her, legs entwined and  skin pressed together, the material of her dress hiking up her tights, sweaty hair sticking to the back of their heads,  her lips wandering on his neck until he shivers and grunts and grabs her wrist so  hard it hurts and pulls her from the crowd.

She trips on other’s people feet and almost falls  down on her knees when he locks the door of the storage room behind her, but he catches her before she can reach the ground. He puts her on her feet; sweeps a stray streaks of hair off her face, caressing her cheek,  fingers still locked around her wrist.

They’re both breathing heavily,  silence echoes and they just keep on  staring at each other for a heartbeat or two  ; she looks at his wild curls, inky and messed up by her hands, freckles dark on his skin like pinpricks of a needle.

He licks his lips and later, she can’t remember who moved first; she just remembers that suddenly she stands with her back pressed to the wall, one of her hands under his shirt, sneaking up his back, another pulling on the leather belt on his pant and he holds her face cupped and is kissing her, kissing her and it’s such a relief to feel his lips on hers that she thinks she’s about to cry,  and it’s good he’s standing so close because it’s mere seconds before her knees let go and she leans on him; throws her  body on him and he keep her steady, just like he always does.

His pulls up her tight dress and she moans into his mouth and she’s sure this asshole is smiling, but when she breaks the kiss to take a breath, he looks just as wrecked as she does, bloody red and crazy with need.

‘’ Clarke’’ he crooks, desperately, lowering his head until their foreheads touch, their faces so close she could count all the shades of his brown eyes turned black.  ‘’ Clarke’’

His hand moves up, fingers ghosting on her lower belly and she’s about to scream if he doesn’t touch her harder, now.

She jerks her hips, brushing against him and he growls, his lips finding her pulse point and sucking on it.

She closes her eyes and throws her head back, tugging on his curls and his thumbs draw small circles over the edge of her underwear, making her tremble.

‘’ Please.’’ She manages to say,  because they’re so tense they’re about to break in a moment and it’s not gonna be pretty;  there’s no coming back from this anyway now.  He bites on her neck, on her collarbone, on the top of her breasts and she just can’t see anything anymore and definitely can’t think about anything than this, than now, than him.

‘’ Please’’ she pants now, louder and more pressing, because it almost hurts, now that  all the tension and want that was between them finally brought them here. She scratches his back hard, pressing her nails to his skin and leaving claw marks in between his shoulder blades, ‘’ Stop – fucking- teasing me.’’

 _Now_ she can feel him smiling on her skin, chuckling and then he slips his hand in between her tights and _then_ is when she cries out loud, rocking her hips, her forehead dropping on the top of his head and nails clenching on his shoulders and he pushes his head up, bumping his nose against hers  and he kisses her so gently and tenderly it almost makes her scream again.

‘’ Clarke.’’  He whispers her name like a prayer,  filled with worship, with awe and that’s what freezes her in place for a moment _No, no, no, please no._

Suddenly, whole world turns around and here she is, standing wrecked in a storage room of the Dropship, messed up hair and her best friend’s fingers inside her and she’s not just needy or desperate- she’s, most of all, scared, scared of herself, scared of how much this man loves her.

But before she can say something –do something, think something more - he crooks his fingers in her and she can’t do anything anymore, but let it all go, once and for all.

  


+5

 

She calls him in the middle of the night, curled up on the balcony-  Paris bright and beautiful underneath her and she wants nothing more than for somebody to come and _take her home_.

‘’Clarke?’’

His voice is soft and  then she’s crying; hot tears spilling from her eyes, burning her skin as they drip on her knees and  she just-

‘’ Bell.’’ -she sobs, choked, clutching  the phone; Eiffel Tower shines in yellow and gold and she thinks about his eyes back in October when she was making an installation out of the autumn leaves and he laid down  on them, red and orange surrounding his head like a crown.

‘’ Oh, _Clarke_.’’

‘’ Bell- Bellamy.’’ – she presses her cheek to the metal railing, cold stinging her cheek . ‘’ Bellamy.’’

She can hear his heavy breathing, a loud thump of his forehead against the wall because she’s hurting but he can’t wrap his arms around her and make it better.

‘’ Clarke, listen. Listen to me.’’

She closes her eyes.

‘’ I’m with you.’’

Paris is livid, restless;  neons and post lights flickering, people laughing on the streets and she wraps her arms around her knees and cries and cries.

‘’I’m with you, Princess. I’m with you.’’

He’s not, he really isn’t; but in this moment, she can almost feel him, the pure intensity of his voice almost taking him through the ocean and placing on the balcony next to her, his lips pressed to the top of her head, his thumbs caressing her wrists, his body shielding her from cold and his heart shielding her from fear.

‘’I’m with you too.’’ – she whispers, her lips brushing the screen of her phone  and, for a moment, they can both lie to themselves, if only just to bring some rest to their bones.

 

0.

 

Dropship is dark and crammed, all filled with sweat and bodies and pulsing music.

She tries to follow Jasper through the crowd, but it’s nearly impossible to keep up his pace and then she slips on something and trips and-

 

And then somebody catches her

‘’ Easy, Princess.’’ – she hears and raises her head up; a pair of very brown eyes, small, amused smile dancing in the corner of his lips, his arms still around her and   keeping her steady in place.

She has both hands on his shoulder, cotton of this shirt soft underneath her fingers.

‘’Uh, I’m sorry.’’ – she mumbles, letting her arms drop on her sides as he helps her up.

 ‘’No problem. ‘’ – he says, winking at her and he’s so- so lovely and so strange,  something dark and feral  in his face mixed up with kindness of his hands and voice. – ‘’Falling on this floor wouldn’t end up nice for you, that’s for sure’’

   ‘’ Thank you.’’ – she breaths out,  a bit dazed, noticing he still had hands on her waist.

And that she doesn’t mind. At all.

She doesn’t think; she puts her hands on his shoulders again and climbs on her toes; before he can react, she presses a soft, small kiss on the corner of his lips, barely brushing them with hers, electricity  running down her spine as she pulls back and sees  the way he watches her.

‘’That’s how you always express gratitude to random strangers?’’ – he asks her,  raising one brew and running a hand through his wild, black curls.

‘’No.’’ she says simply, shrugging. ‘’ No, not always.’’

And then Jasper waves at her , so she sends him an apologetic smile and then they’re officially introduced and they hate each other and then they don’t but,  well.

Clarke doesn’t really ever know why she kissed him back then.

  
  


+6

 

She leaves for the third time with no fanfare and no tears and no goodbye; she just slips from his arms at 3 A.M., tiptoeing through his apartment and collecting her stuff on her way to the door and closing them without turning around to glance at him for the last time.

This time- this time she runs away like a true, true coward and she’s so numb with fear she can’t even bring herself to care. She stayed for a year and she tried, she really did but every night she dreamt about golden wedding bands burning her skin and flesh to the bone, all she could think of was Raven’s broken face as she laid in the bathroom floor with her cheek pressed to the cold tiles, the strongest person she knew sobbing her heart out and wailing like a tortured animal for a man who didn’t deserve to kiss her feet.

Bellamy is perfect in every way, made for her,  he’s not Finn and they’re not her parents and he mind knows this, but her heart doesn’t and she’s too weak to fight it.

So she runs. Over and over and again. Story repeating itself from their very first meeting; in circles we go, in circles we run.

 

Bellamy knows she’s gone before he really wakes up; he wants to scream, but he’s too numb from pain to even do that.

So he just- turns around and go backs to sleep. It’s not like it’s the first time, even though it really feels like the last.  

He wonders if that’s how it’s like to be pushed right to the breaking point. Is there even a way to come back now?

 

Flashback:

 

Clarke coming home late at night, Bellamy opening doors before she can take out keys from her purse, lifting her up in his arms to pull her into the apartment and tugging her pants down, getting her off with his mouth on her and his hot breath sending shivers through her whole body, his hands on her hips keeping her standing when her legs begin to tremble, her hands buried in his hair, tugging on his curls desperately, ‘ I thought you are gone’ clear and loud in his every movement, ‘I already miss you’ filling her every moan.

 

The dead of the night finding them on the carper in the living room,  Bellamy’s head resting on her tight,  her eyes half-closed as she watched the snow falling on the skylight window, covering glass until is white and white and black.

‘’ Would you run away if you could?’’ – she asks quietly, feeling his shoulder tense under her fingers.

‘’ I don’t know.’’ – he admits, lips brushing her skin as he speaks. – ‘’ I could never afford to think about it.’’

  


-14

 

‘’ Octavia, sit still’’ the nurse says and Bellamy holds his sister’s little hand until his chuckles turn white.

Pediatric ward  is painted dull yellow, with pale blue butterflies stickers on the glassed doors and they are the only thing Octavia likes about the hospital.

‘’ Pretty’’ – she says, pointing at them and Bellamy half-smiles. He’s ten and he should be at school right now, but his  mom has to work today and he doesn’t want his sister to be alone now. She’s glass pale, but her grip on his hand is strong.   Octavia is a fighter, right from the beginning ; two points on Apgar’s scale, small fracture in her heart and non-existent immunity that keeps her locked in the hospital like a sick princess in a tower.

‘’ Good girl.’’-coos the nurse, pretty young girl with fluffy red hair, putting the syringe filled with Octavia’s blood on the table beside her bed. – ‘’You should sleep now, honey. Rest.’’

Octavia raises her eyes to look at him; blue and big and strangely old in her chubby face of a four year old.  

‘’ Bell.’’

‘’ I’ll stay, O. You sleep.’’ – he says quickly, squeezing her hand. She smiles content and snuggles in blankets, pulling them up to her chin and closing her eyes to doze off.

The nurse sighs heavily and looks at them for a moment before patting Bellamy’s head gently and leaving. As soon as doors close, Bellamy takes off his shoes and lays beside his sister; their breaths mixing, their foreheads touching, them against the world, always.

  


+2

 

Bellamy doesn’t spot the moment he falls in love with Clarke-

He just knows he’s in love with her. And he doesn’t think he has been more certain about anything else in his entire life.

Clarke lays on his bed, watching old Friends reruns and slowly falling asleep to Ross and Rachel’s banter, on hand flat on her bare stomach, another one casually tapping on his tight as he struggles his way through chapter 17 of ‘Long Way Down’, trying to portray much Hades loves Persephone without making it predatory, creepy or overdramatic and then she turns around, presses her face to his hip and he cards his fingers though her hair and he just-  knows.

The air conditioning is broken again, so they opened glass balcony door to let in some wind from the outside; breeze caresses their skin, bringing in the smell of gasoline and sweat and hot concrete and he can feel the warmth of her breath through the material of his pants and he knows he loves her, he’s in love with her, he could never love anyone the way he loves her; completely and unconditionally and so, so deeply it goes right to his core.  It’s not the way he loves Octavia, it’s the kind of love that will ruin him and neither he cares or he cares to care.

Clarke laces her fingers with his and it’s almost as if the words flew out of him without any hesitation; his best friend falls asleep on him and he writes and writes and writes, fingers of his right hand tapping on the keyboard,  his right hand sweaty and holding Clarke’s and, on his computer screen, Hades falls in love with Persephone with every passing second over and over and over again.

 

+3

 

He takes her home- calls a cab and holds her on his lap; her eyes half closed and fingers entwined with his, breathing heavily , their blood still boiling when he opens the door and she kisses him before he can close them.

They leave a trail of clothes on their way to the bed, fury and teeth and nails, him hoisting her up and leaving bruises on her tights from holding her so tightly, her biting on his lips until they can taste blood.

He spreads her on the bed,  hands trailing up her back to unclasp her bra, shivering when she takes a sharp breath when his mouth finds her breast, grinding her hips against his, hands fisting his sheets,  tense and  trembling like in a fever and so far gone she doesn’t even care-

And then he stops.

‘’No.’’ she whines, hips jerking up, desperate for some friction and he puts hands on her hips – gently, this time, his thumbs caressing her hipbones, pinning her to the mattress and then kissing her eyelids.

‘’ Clarke, look at me. Clarke, please’’ – he  says, slowly, his breath hot on her skin on of his hands caressing her cheek. ‘’ Hey, look at me.’’

She opens her eyes, their foreheads leaning on one another; she rests her hands on his neck and shakes her head, desperate moans escaping from her lips.

‘’Shhhh.’’ He silences her, nosing her cheek, his lips soft on hers, moving sloppy and slowly until she stops shivering . ‘’Breathe. We’ve got time.’’

 

He kisses her long and sweet and before she notices, she kisses him too, gets lost in it; his hands trail down her body, fingers dancing on her ribcage, on her stomach. He moves down and kisses the inside of her tights; she loops one leg around his waist, pulling him closer, higher; she kisses his hands, his face, his neck, soft and carefree and delicately, barely brushing the skin and she had no idea she’s capable of being this gentle with anyone until now.

She doesn’t  the spot the moment when he slips inside her; all she knows is that suddenly they're moving in the same rhythm, slower than she was ever going, eyes open and locked on each other the whole time, her hands on his shoulder and his caressing her hair, soothing her when she wants to go faster.

It’s not sex and he’s not fucking her and it’s just- it’s so different that  almost hurts her, wounds her, the way they meet halfway through every thrust, the way her body betrays her when she clenches around him and they breathe  and gasp at the same time and it’s so _tender_ she doesn’t even have a name for what they’re doing .

He kisses the mole above her lips, their noses bumping  and then their muscles tense, he bits on his lip and speeds up, but only a bit and she spreads her legs a bit wider and presses the back of her head to the pillow and his hand moves in between them and that’s when they both come, eyes wide open and hearts beating in the same rhythm , something inexplicably breaking between them once and for all.

  
  


‘’ Bellamy, I have to leave.’’ – she wakes him up, shaking his arm until he opens his eyes and sees her sitting on the edge of the bed, still naked and glowing, flushed cheeks and hair messy.

‘’ It’s Sunday. ‘’ – he yawns, sitting up. ‘’ You don’t have classes. Stay a bit longer.’’

‘’No, you- you don’t understand.’’ – now he notices she’s nervous, almost frantic; she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and she grips on it, her chuckles almost white. ‘’ Not  home. I’ve got to leave.’’

And it hits him- shakes him awake, puts him on alert, her eyes widened and the same look his mother used to have, sometimes-  the look of a caged animal, let me go, let me go.

‘’ Clarke’’ – he chokes on her name, closing the distance between them, running his thumb on the cupid’s bow of her lips, still red and swollen. ‘’ Clarke, if it’s about sex, we can talk, I mean, god, please, don’t-‘’

‘’ It’s not about sex.’’ – she shakes her head, tears pooling in her eyes, but she doesn’t shy from his touch, doesn’t try to hide from him and he knows that she’s not lying. It’s not about sex, because they weren’t having sex. Not really.

‘’ Where do you want to go?’’- he lets out, his voice shaking and he hates himself for this, hates for letting himself believe, letting himself to be lulled into the false sense of security in the way she fell asleep in his arms and kissed him softly.

She looks down at her knees, the bruises he left on her tights, purple against the cream white; he puts his hands on them , caresses her skin, tries to memorize how it feels like, how _she_ feels like.

‘’ I don’t know.’’ She says and she sounds- tired. Scared. ‘’ But, Bellamy- ‘’ –

Clarke looks up, her blue eyes finding his and it feels as if she tore his fucking heart of his chest,  knowing now how it is to have her and then see her running away like a scared , wild animal, back to the woods.

She kisses his cheek, lips lingering a little bit longer and maybe she tries to memorize him too.

‘’ I’ll come back.’’ She whispers on his skin, stuttering and her voice breaking on ‘’ back’’ and then she wraps the blanket around herself tighter and stands up and _leaves_ and runs away from his life as out of the blue as she ran into it.

  
  


\+ 4

 

She runs and runs and she never slows down willingly, but there are moments when the _time_ slows down and she can do nothing but stand still along with it.

 

Like, when she rides a bus late at night, cheek pressed to the window, eyes fixed on the outlines of the buildings illuminated by the post lights, her hands cold, Bellamy’s favorite Chopin’s symphony playing on her iPod and suddenly she’s thousand miles away from her body, lost and vast and endless.

She’s in the small diner on Red Square in Moscow,  eating pink soup and halfway through One Hundred Years of Solitude and her nose red and running because of the cold and then she’s not there anymore; she looks down on her own hands and she doesn’t recognize them  and wonders _what is Bellamy doing now?_

 

She wakes up in the middle of the night, sweat dripping down her back, hair sticking to her bare shoulders, the image of Bellamy sitting in front of her on the bed with his legs crossed and face opened with such a honesty it felt like he was showing her his raw soul and nothing less; his low voice singing to her Neruda’s poems-

‘’ Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs, oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.’’

-the ode to the body electric, the song of their wild hearts, the one thing that always made them come back for more.

 

Naylah is kissing the column of her neck, her hands creeping and it’s all great and good and easy until it’s not. Because she burns, her limbs on fire, itching and hurting and she wants and wants and wants, but never anyone else but him.

 

9+

 

By the time Clarke comes back in July, his relationship with Gina has already sung its swan song, both of them trying desperately, struggling against their own  better judgment to make it work for Jules.

And failing, always failing, always feeling like there’s not three, but four of them, the ghost of blonde hair and blue eyes following them whenever they went.

Still, when one spring evening Gina gently takes his hand and asks him to move out,  it feels like shock; a bucket of cold water spilled on his head, making him sick to the core as he kissed his son’s forehead and left him in Gina’s arms, closing the door behind him and leaving a pieces of his heart with every step taking him further from Gina’s warm eyes and Jules’ messy brown hair and wide, toothless smile.

 

Once he thought he could never hate Clarke, not really and god, he was wrong.

He hates her; hates her so much with the hate so burning it makes him breathless like her kisses used to; he hates her head to toe,  he despises the sight of her face; he wants to wrap his hands around her neck-

(and kiss her and kiss her and kiss her and kiss her and kiss her)

After all those years, after all those times she made him let her in and then left him bleeding, after all those times he tried to cut her out from his heart and from his mind, from his very soul, he sees her with his vision clouded with rage and fuck, still all he wants to do is to-

( kiss her)

( take her home)

( scare her fears away and guard her from the nightmares as she sleeps)

 

But this time it’s –different.

He knows she’s home because Raven told him, but she doesn’t just appear on his doormat like a stray cat purring for attention; she keeps her distance, sends him a text or two and doesn’t press when he doesn’t respond. She’s in the Dropship and in his bookshop ; he catches a glimpse of her golden hair in between people and shelves and waits for her to come closer, but she doesn’t,

She’s painfully here, but for the first time, she’s the one that purposely takes it slow and Bellamy can’t help but wonder why.

‘’  She waits, Bell.’’ –says Raven, even though he didn’t ask.  They’re sitting on the floor in Bellamy’s new living room, watching Jules as he tries to take a bite of everything around him, enthusiastically reaching for the end of Raven’s ponytail and Bellamy’s books.

Gina and Raven are a new thing and Bellamy wonders why this doesn’t bother him at all; probably because Raven looks more happy than ever and Gina deserves someone great and Jules loves Raven as much as a toddler can.

And Bellamy’s whole mind and heart still belong to one thing and one thing only.

‘’ You waited, so she waits now too. For you to take a first step.’’

‘’ Oh, then she’s going to wait long.’’ – he snickers, giving Jules his stuffed giraffe and receiving a chewed –up throw pillow wet with droll in return.

Raven huffs and shakes her head, standing up and looking at him from above.

‘’I wouldn’t tell you this if I didn’t think it’s different this time, you know? ‘’

‘’It doesn’t matter, Raven.’’

He’s a liar, he’s such a liar.

  


\- 5

 

She may still be a kid, but she knows, when something is wrong.

Her parents’ marriage breaks clear and silent and slowly; in between unspoken words and glances and outstretched hands that are never taken.

 

Clarke dips her pink-painted toes in the swimming pool,  eyes fixed on the flamingos on her mother’s towel thrown haphazardly into the water, her ears closed as all hell breaks loose behind her back, as her father stands in front of her mother and neither of them even recognizes other’s faces.

 

She thinks about golden rings on their fingers; golden snakes, golden handcuffs, ‘’may only death tear us apart’’ bitter and mocking and cruel.

Because some things are never meant to last forever.

Clarke is never going to let anyone make her theirs. She’s never going to let anyone make her want to belong with them.

  


0\. (+10)

 

This time, she’s not going to say sorry; she already apologized to him too many times, ‘’sorry’’ means nothing and heals no wounds if it’s not followed by the change and she was never able to change anything.

  


She can feel her throat tightening; she blinks twice, takes one step towards him and then stops halfway.

 

“Ask me, please.” – she says, not daring to look him in the eyes.

Silence fills the room for a second and then he cuts it, sharply.

 

“ Are you staying, Clarke?’’

 

She stares at her feet and then takes a deep breath. She runs into his arms and fits there effortlessly, easily, just like ten years ago and ever since. At first he just- stands there, frozen, but his body always betrays him, just like Clarke’s betrays her;  he drops his head on her shoulder, she buries her nose in his collarbone, wraps her arms around his waist; she can feel his fingers in her hair, tugging gently on loose streaks escaping from her braid.

‘’Clarke, please, tell me if you’re staying.’’ His voice is shaking now and he’s probably crying but that’s fine, because she’s crying too. – ‘’I – I really need to know now.’’

 

There’s desperation in him, in his whole body, in the way he clings to her and she clings to him and this moment feels heavy, so, so heavy as if the rest of their lives depended on it.

Maybe that’s how it is. Maybe their lives really depend on what she’s going to say now.

 

But she had some time to run and she had found something along the way and  now she knows who she belongs with.

She would always hug him, ever time; bury her faces in the crook of his neck, hide her eyes to escape from his, veil  the love that’s so clearly written on her features even a blind man could see it. She’s not gonna do this anymore.

 She gently unwraps from his arms, takes a few steps away from him until she sees his face, locks her eyes with him, the pure electricity of his stare making her tremble.

 

‘’ Fear is a demon.’’ - said Octavia, holding her wrist and looking at her with the same intensity as her brother now. – ‘’Slay the demon or you’ll never be free.’’

 

I’m not afraid.

You can’t build on ‘’sorry’’. But she can do something else, build on something else.

 

‘’ As long as you’re staying, I’m staying with you.’’ – she says, firm and calm and surer than she was about anything else.

He gasps, blinks and –

He doesn’t believe her. She can see it, but- that’s okay. She will make him believe. Maybe not now, maybe in time but –

But they have time.

 

‘’ I love you.’’- she says again, soft, as soft as he was for her, that first time in March. ‘’ I’m not going to leave you ever again.’’

She wraps her arms around his waist, puts her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, feels him breathing out and in and for a moment nothing happens and then –

And then his whole body shivers, relieved laugh escaping his lips as he presses her closer, kissing the crown of her head.

 

Home, home, _home._

 

‘Jesus, Clarke.’’ – he says, his voice shaky. ‘’ You’re serious.’’

‘’ I am.’’ – she agrees, letting him pull her down on the floor and wrap his body around her, caress her back, cry on her shirt. She‘s quite sure, she has never been than happy in her entire life.

 

She breaths him in; he lets it go; she forgives herself for leaving; he forgives himself for staying.

He carries her to bed, her head heavy and lolling on his shoulder, her eyes wide open and bright.

They lay beside each other and she writes ‘we did what we had to do’ on his back with her fingertips, brushing his skin and leaving a trail of goose bumps with every touch until the words soak into his blood, run in his veins, until he feels that there’s nothing she believes in more than them.

He falls asleep in the morning, cheek pressed to the pillow and looking like all the things Bellamy was never and was always ; innocent and fragile and perfect  and Clarke watches him in silence.

Circle is broken; no more overs and overs, beside falling in love with him more and more every single passing day.

‘’ I love you.’’ She whispers again, lips barely parted, words easy and light on her tongue. ‘’And  when you wake up, I’m going to tell you this one more time.’’

And this is how it all really, truly _starts._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sooooo.... that's it, I guess ;). If you liked it, please, PLEASE drop me kudos/comments, I need them to keep my dying self-confidence alive.  
> Wanna cry about bellarke with me? I'm here on tumblr- alltheworldsinmyhead.tumblr.com  
> Have a nice day :D


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